The black margate (''Anisotremus surinamensis''), also known as black bream, black thicklip, dogfish, lippe, Mexican bull, pompon, Spanish grunt, surf bream, sweetlips or thicklip grunt, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

, a

grunt Grunt, grunts or grunting may refer to: Sound and music * Grunting (tennis), in tennis refers to the loud noise, sometimes described as "shrieking" or "screaming", made by some players during their strokes * Death grunt, the death metal singi ...

belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Haemulidae Haemulidae is a family (biology), family of fishes in the order (biology), order Perciformes known commonly as grunts. It is made up of the two subfamily, subfamilies Haemulinae (grunts) and Plectorhynchinae (sweetlips), which contain about 133 ...

. It is native to the western

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

Description

The black margate has a deep, compressed body with a high back and a short, blunt head. The mouth is positioned low on the head, it is horizontal with fleshy lips and the jaws are equipped with bands of teeth on both jaws. The outer band of teeth are conical in shape. It has a greyish-silver body which is darker on the anterior half than the posterior half. The dorsal scales have black centres and the fins are dark grey, the

pelvic The pelvis (: pelves or pelvises) is the lower part of an anatomical trunk, between the abdomen and the thighs (sometimes also called pelvic region), together with its embedded skeleton (sometimes also called bony pelvis or pelvic skeleton). ...

and

anal Anal may refer to: Related to the anus *Related to the anus of animals: ** Anal fin, in fish anatomy ** Anal vein, in insect anatomy ** Anal scale, in reptile anatomy *Related to the human anus: ** Anal sex, a type of sexual activity involving ...

fins being the darkest. There is a darker pt h to the rear of the pectoral fins. The juveniles have a black stripe along the lateral line and another along the upper back, and a large black spot on base of tail fin. the

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

has 12 spines and 18 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 9 soft rays. There is a deep notch in the dorsal fin and the fourth dorsal spine is longer than the others while the second anal spine is also very large. The black margate reaches a maximum total length of , although a total length of is more typical, while the heaviest specimen recorded was .

Distribution

The black margate is found in the warmer parts of the Western Atlantic Ocean. It is found in

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

from

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

south through the

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral island, coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami a ...

to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

, including the

Flower Garden Banks The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) is a United States National Marine Sanctuary located off of Galveston, Texas, in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. It contains the northernmost coral reefs in the United States. Underlyi ...

, from

Rockport, Texas Rockport is a city and county seat of Aransas County, Texas, United States. The population was 10,070 at the 2020 census. Rockport is adjacent to the town of Fulton, and many refer to the combined communities as "Rockport-Fulton"; however, Ro ...

along the coast of Mexico to the northern Yucatan Peninsula and northwestern Cuba. It occurs throughout the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

then and along the northern and eastern coasts of South America to

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

in Brazil. It also occurs at the

Fernando de Noronha Fernando de Noronha (), officially the State District of Fernando de Noronha () and formerly known as the Federal Territory of Fernando de Noronha () until 1988, is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the state of Pernambuco, Brazil, and ...

and

Trindade Island Trindade and Martim Vaz (, ) is an archipelago located in the South Atlantic Ocean about east off the coast of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, of which it forms a part. The archipelago has a total area of and a navy-supported research ...

Habitat and biology

The Black margate shows a preference for steep, sloping rock substrates or rock reefs in inshore waters down to depths of . It frequently takes shelter in caves, ledges and within wrecks. It is normally encountered either as small groups or individuals. It is a nocturnal feeder, its diet including crustaceans, molluscs, smaller fish and urchins. A frequent item in its diet are sea urchins in the genus '' Diadema''. They may gather in

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

aggregations and, off Jamaica, breeding adults have been reported between April and August. Larvae and young juveniles have been observed settling on rocky seabeds off Florida.

Systematics

The black margate was first formally described in 1791 as ''Lutjanus surinamensis'' by the German

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) with the type locality given as

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

Utilisation

The black margate is occasionally caught and marketed by fisheries, although the consumption of the flesh of larger fishes has been linked to cases of ciguatera poisoning. They are also found in the aquarium trade.

References

External links

Marinespecies.org
* {{Taxonbar, from=Q2711102 Black margate Fish of the Western Atlantic Fish described in 1791 Fish of Aruba Marine fish of Nicaragua